Martin Grants Magenta Madness

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Martin Grants Magenta Madness

And if you can believe the tweets buzzing around in the fashion world, we are supposed to call this Magenta Madness Pigment. And madness it definitely is.

I don’t know if you consider yourself a fashion victim. I, for my part, don’t like the part of the victim. I like fashion, but I feel sorry for all this fashion editors who do nothing else all the year round than to assist to one fashion show after the other. They just arrived from Milano. Have you an idea how many shows are on at the Paris Fashion Week? Nearly a hundred. That’s hard work. All in high heels. And then imagine the parties after…

Yesterday, when these poor fashion editors where waiting for the beginning of the show of Australian born designer Martin Grant, a guy wanted to take a photo of the girl at his side, an American colleague obviously. But she just shouted: “Stop it! It’s daylight. I’ve got my night face on!” And she actually had. No wonder that theses poor ladies look all decades older than the models on the catwalk.

The hidden treasures of Paris

I’ve to admit: I could never stand the marathon of the Paris Fashion Week. Whereas one or two nice shows can be really fun. Martin Grant definitely was: I like his clear colour statement, his sense of structuring the feminine silhouette. He’s most talented, but in spite of hiss success, still a bit underestimated.

His simple dresses or short suits don’t need to fear comparison with Celine. But nobody likes to admit it. I once read about him “Wearing a Grant design will never make you look cutting edge or avant-garde but, more to the point, it will never make you look like a fashion victim.” Isn’t this exactly what most of us working women want? Well, you don’t reproach a designer making wearable outfits, do you?

And then there was the location that enchanted me: La Chapelle des Petits-Augustins, a church, today part of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and until the French Revolution the chapel of the monastery of the Petits-Augustins. It has the oldest dome of Paris.

When I walked into the dark chapel only lightened by the spotlights of the photographers and discovered all these casts of Renaissance sculptures, the paintings, a copy of Michel Angelo’s Last Judgement and the immaculate catwalk in the middle of all, I just felt as if I’ve to pinch myself: “This is Paris”. Breathtaking beautiful and miraculously hiding its treasures.

Grant mad us wait with Pergolesis Stabat Mater. And fashion, all the sudden, seemed to be part of something bigger, seemed to part of the Arts, part of the worship. Part of Magenta Madness - even if the name is too beautiful to be true: The lip-colour is actually called Magenta Process and teaches you: Never trust the tweets.Photos:Magenta Madness or Magenta Process? Just very pink